FICKLE EULOGY
Circle and Star Theatre
★★★
“a jack of all trades, struggling to fully realise the richness of the themes it taps on”
Art reckoning with the covid-19 pandemic is still emerging, rather than established, with many of us only beginning to process its impact from a distance. Fickle Eulogy steps into this uncertain space, attempting to navigate a fresh, complicated loss, and understand who or what is responsible for it.
Ann is pacing the kitchen rehearsing her mother’s eulogy, panic bleeding through her pauses as she straightens her outfit and worries when to take the cheesecake out of the fridge. In an hour, family and friends will arrive ready to celebrate her mother’s birthday, as requested, instead of a funeral. An Alexa device chips in with warnings of “negative language” and a charged tone, sending Ann back and forth in her ruminations as she scrambles for the perfect tribute.
It’s a compelling and emotional set-up, but one with a deliberate stop-start rhythm, thanks to Alexa’s interruptions. These in-scene resets do allow for some moments of sharp character work, exploring themes and anxieties Ann has about her mother’s death. A chirpy meditation practitioner and a gun-loving American are brash and cartoonish, effectively spotlighting the absurdity of pandemic-era discourse and the blurred lines between holistic and pharmaceutical health. Online misinformation becomes an uncanny and cabaret performer, whispering mistruths and hatred to a rapt audience. These moments were bold and ambitious, but too fleeting to sustain momentum, disappearing just as they began to really intrigue.
As the creator and sole performer, Nikol Kollars brings a commanding stage presence, amped up by Javier Galitó-Cava’s direction. Her versatility is proven through her vocal talent, and the adoption of strange and heightened characters, where she’s able to find a balance between embodying the forces to blame for her mothers’ death and mocking them. Lighting and sound design from Koa Salazar, alongside original music from Frederic Wort, helped ground the piece and provide a sense of resolution. The stage was set for a reckoning of the power of technology against human life, but the Alexa sits on it relatively unchallenged. It practically hums with untapped possibility. Similarly, gnarly topics like conspiracy thinking and the responsibility we owe elders are skimmed over without really delving in.
For all its ambition, Fickle Eulogy becomes a jack of all trades, struggling to fully realise the richness of the themes it taps on. It does land on a moving final note, with Hawaiian song bringing a nostalgic emotional clarity to Ann’s pre-party jitters. Ultimately, it’s a production which accurately mirrors the fragmentation of pandemic grief, but perhaps a little too closely, leaving us scattered and searching for a spark.
FICKLE EULOGY
Circle and Star Theatre
Reviewed on 7th April 2026
by Jessica Hayes
Photography by Mattia Sedda
